So THAT’S what keeps us in the air! Watch the huge 5-tonne engines being replaced on an Airbus A340-600
A new behind-the-scenes video shows engineers replacing the Rolls-Royce Trent 5000 engines on a Virgin Atlantic plane
THE fact that your plane to Alicante stays up in the air might seem like a miracle, but it’s really all down to those giant engines below the wings.
So unsurprisingly, a huge amount of work goes into the upkeep of the five-ton engines every day to make sure they are still fit to fly.
A new behind-the-scenes video released by Virgin Atlantic now shows just how much work goes into changing one of those engines on one of the largest aircrafts in the world - the Airbus A340-600.
The time lapse video was filmed across a 24 hour period at the airline’s London Heathrow hangar.
The hangar is 65,636 square feet and is home to hundreds of the airline’s engineers, who carry out skilled maintenance work, checks and repairs on aircraft.
Extensive engineering work that has to take place on a Rolls-Royce Trent 5000 engine before it can be fitted to an aeroplane.
The engine weighs in with a dry weight (without fuel) of five tonnes, so an impressive bit of kit is needed to extract it from its exterior cowling.
Suspended from the hangar ceiling, a single point hoist powered by a ceiling crane allows the aircraft wings to flex upwards, as the hoist takes the entire weight on the engine, before it is removed and replaced.
The High-pressure turbine blades in the heart of the engine each generate around 900 horsepower - equivalent to an F1 car.
The force on a fan blade at take-off is equivalent to almost 1000 tonnes, which is the same as a freight train hanging from each blade.
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Phil Maher, EVP of Operations at Virgin Atlantic, said: “When you think of Virgin Atlantic and the people who work here, more often than not, our famous cabin crew and pilots spring to mind.
“However, there’s an entire team of skilled people working constantly behind the scenes to ensure that thousands of our customers enjoy safe, reliable flights every day.”
